9600GT review at tweaktown

[Keysplayr]

Looking at reviews of this card, and hoping the 9800GX2 and 9800GTS/GTX have the same AA fix as the 9600GT, I am starting to drool in anticipation. A 64 sp card is holding it's own against 96/112/320 sp cards. I don't know how anyone would not be impressed with this.

 

[Rusin]

There have been few temperature and power consumption tests and it seems that 9600 GT consumes considerably less than 8800 GT and also runs much cooler.

For example
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/...6198ubL2AEBGjn_6_3.gif

 

[happy medium]

Originally posted by: PC Surgeon

Originally posted by: lookouthere
9600GT is at Newegg right now!!!!!!!!!

Text

The superclocked version has the core at 675, 25 higher then the tested card for 179.00$.
This card is cheaper and a little faster then the 3870 right?

 

[razor2025]

9600GT looks like a compelling solution for under $200. Except that $210 MSI 8800GT OC deal is also mighty tasty looking..... Damn it...

 

[SniperDaws]

The 9600GT is priced too high, ive just been to www.scan.co.uk and while they have a plaite 9600GT for £129 the rest are priced from £140 upto £187 for the 1GB version.

It would be a silly idea to purchase the 9600GT over the 8800GT unless that price drops to £100.

looks like i should of bought that 8800GT 2weeks ago, oh well im getting one bought now cos i defo wont be able to afford a 9800GT/GTS/GTX.


Here's an idea you all have a 12 hours to try and convince me a 9600GT would be the better purchase. 🙂

 

[Rusin]

Well in Germany cheapest 9600 GT is:
-5 USD cheaper than cheapest HD3850 512
-15 USD cheaper than cheapest 8800 GT 256
-25 USD cheaper than cheapest HD3870 512
-40 USD cheaper than cheapest 8800 GT 512

Initial prices of 9600 GT cards are 15% smaller than 8800 GT's.

..but since cheapest 8800 GT 512 (happens to have special cooler also) is like 192 USD (including shipping costs)..
---

Basically you have cheap 8800 GT-cards there

 

[SniperDaws]

http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/501/

This must be the most confusing review ive ever read.

 

[Rusin]

Originally posted by: SniperDaws
http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/501/

This must be the most confusing review ive ever read.

You didn't read VR-Zone's?

 

[SniperDaws]

lol, take a look at this.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/501/19/

Call of duty at 1600x1200 the 9600GT scores 28fps when pitted against the other cards in the range but when competing against each other with 4xAA and 16xAF and max ingame settings the 9600GT's score 37fps.

am i missing somthing >?

 

[lookouthere]

is it worth it to buy it right now?

 

[Rusin]

These are the moments when you'd really wish that you wouldn't need Nvidia's crappy motherboard chipset for SLI! Seen few SLI tests with 9600 GT and it seems that it scales better in SLI than previous Nvidia offerings.
I mean I calculated from ComputerBase's (bigger name in Europe) review that in DX9 games 9600 GT SLI would be 80-90% faster than 9600 GT. DX10 is little bit harder for 9600 GT SLI:
In Crysis and Company of heroes this 9600 GT SLI dies to the level of single card. In Lost Planet and Call of Juarez it manages to pull huge difference and in "World in conflict" 9600 GT SLI actually loses when not using AA, but when AA enabled there's 90% difference.

ComputerBase's performance ranking:
Geforce 9600 GT SLI 161,4
Radeon HD3870 X2 156,2
Geforce 8800 Ultra 137,7
----
---
HD3870 112,5
Geforce 9600 GT 100
HD3850 512MB 98,5

So basically Nvidia's single card solution ain't that fabulous in their test, but Nvidia's dual card solution wins AMD's dual GPU solution. What about Geforce 9800 GX2? It has twice the SP, Twice the TMU...

 

[AzN]

Is 64SP really enough for shader heavy games in the future? Or will it cripple it like Geforce 7? Currently there aren't too many games where SP dictates massive performance differences but that day is coming soon which was more pronounced with geforce 7 vs x1000 series.

9600gt does well now for current crop of games but so did Geforce 7 series at the time. I just wonder if it would last..

You can tell that HD3000 series have stronger shader compared to 9600gt 64 shader or else it would lose to 9600gt in all the tests because 9600gt has massive texture fillrate over HD3000 series. This is evident in Anandtech's Oblivion test where shader is just as important. 9600gt loses to 3850 and 3870.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3234&p=4

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: lookouthere
is it worth it to buy it right now?

8800gt is probably the best card to get. 40% more shader and only $20-30 price difference.

 

[SniperDaws]

40% more shader but not 40% faster.

why is it the 9600GT can keep up with the 8800GT with only half the SP?

Also dont forget the 9600GT is using very early drivers and can only get quicker.

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: SniperDaws
40% more shader but not 40% faster.

why is it the 9600GT can keep up with the 8800GT with only half the SP?

Also dont forget the 9600GT is using very early drivers and can only get quicker.

Currently it's not performing 40% faster. But if you can remember what happened with the Geforce 7 series then you would know that shader is the future. Radeon x1000 were very close to Geforce 7 series but as time passed X1000 nearly doubled the performance of Geforce 7.

Early drivers or not. These G94 are nothing but a cut down version of the 8800gt with 48 less shader and 24 tmu.

 

[Rusin]

Originally posted by: Azn


Early drivers or not. These G94 are nothing but a cut down version of the 8800gt with 48 less shader and 24 tmu.

According to what? There have been word about certain updates for architecture (fixing bugs) and now when watching performance numbers it's evident.

 

[SniperDaws]

So out of the 3870 the 9600GT and the 8800GT you would defo recommend the 8800GT ?


Grrrr i wanted to go and buy tomorrow and now im not sure which to buy, i play World in Conflict mostly at the moment and the 3870 is slightly faster @ 1680x1050 than the other 2.

But i also like Nvidia's Purevideo which the 8800GT has but now the 9600GT has updated purevideo hardware.

and also when using AA and AF the 9600GT seems to beat the 8800GT.

i would wait for the 9800GTS but im fucked if im paying £250 - £300 for a graphics card.

i might just print some pics off of the 3 cards and pin them up on my wall and throw a dart.

🙂

 

[taltamir]

have you noticed that among all the sayings about nvidia being tight lipped about what was changed, there was a mention of improved compression algorithm increasing the ... what did they call it... effective bandwidth of the card?
It would be an interesting approach to improving performance.

 

[SniperDaws]

i have noticed that the 9600GT seems to perform much better with newer games and DX10 games.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: SniperDaws
So out of the 3870 the 9600GT and the 8800GT you would defo recommend the 8800GT ?


Grrrr i wanted to go and buy tomorrow and now im not sure which to buy, i play World in Conflict mostly at the moment and the 3870 is slightly faster @ 1680x1050 than the other 2.

But i also like Nvidia's Purevideo which the 8800GT has but now the 9600GT has updated purevideo hardware.

and also when using AA and AF the 9600GT seems to beat the 8800GT.

i would wait for the 9800GTS but im fucked if im paying £250 - £300 for a graphics card.

i might just print some pics off of the 3 cards and pin them up on my wall and throw a dart.

🙂

i kind of like the conclusions from EliteBastards.com ... might help you decide:

While anyone looking to game at high resolutions will still want to shell out extra for a GeForce 8800 GT or GTS, if you have more modest resolution demands then the GeForce 9600 GT looks like a fantastic bit of value for money, rarely finding itself too far short of its big brother the GeForce 8800 GT performance-wise, while also boasting a nice feature set, with the addition of optional HDMI support to the G94 core complementing this part's video processing abilities to make for a potentially exciting Home Theater PC solution to boot.

 

[lookouthere]

It seems to me 9600GT have 96stream processor like the 8800GS but with 256bit mem and higher clock, shader and memory.

 

[Rusin]

So Nvidia would be just lying when they say it has 64SP?

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: Rusin

Originally posted by: Azn


Early drivers or not. These G94 are nothing but a cut down version of the 8800gt with 48 less shader and 24 tmu.

According to what? There have been word about certain updates for architecture (fixing bugs) and now when watching performance numbers it's evident.

So you are saying G94 has had architectural change from the G92? How?

It's just a cut back of G92 chip. 32 tmu and 64 shader. 8 texture per clock for 16sp. It is evident there is no architectural change other than a cut back. There's no new features that has been announced.

It performs well with 8800gt because 8800gt texture fillrate isn't completely being used up. Chunk of that 33.6 fillrate is being held back by it's memory bandwidth.

9600gt does well because most of the texture filrate if not all are being used up in games. Shader isn't the holy grail of performance although video game programmers think it is and they will be adding more effects as time progress into the future. A game has to have more shader effect to take advantage. Current crop of games aren't as shader intensive that a 9600gt can't handle with 64SP.

 

[SniperDaws]

There has to be more to it because the 9600GT is snapping at the heals of the 8800GT even at high resolution and shader intensive games like World in Conlfict and Crysis which is defo the most shader intensive game to date and the 8800GT cant handle it.

im nowhere near as clued up as you Azn on Graphics cards but somthing doesnt add up you have to admit that.

EDIT: Why does the 9600GT get its own driver ?


http://downloads.guru3d.com/Fo...it)-download-1860.html

im starting to think that the 9600GT is the better card because its the cheapest and when these shader intensive games start to rear their heads the other 2 cards are going to die a death aswell.

im not going to be able to sleep now, i need to see benchies with lots stuff turned on with AA and AF.

The reviews that are out now are rubbish, they dont say what settings they had the games set to only Res and they didnt use AA and AF.

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: SniperDaws
There has to be more to it because the 9600GT is snapping at the heals of the 8800GT even at high resolution and shader intensive games like World in Conlfict and Crysis which is defo the most shader intensive game to date and the 8800GT cant handle it.


im starting to think that the 9600GT is the better card because its the cheapest and when these shader intensive games start to rear their heads the other 2 cards are going to die a death aswell.

What more to it? Please explain what you know about 9600gt and its architecture.

9600gt does fine in high resolutions because it has same rop count and memory bandwidth as 8800gt and its texture fillrate that rivals 8800ultra. WIC isn't so shader intensive as you think..

Try NFS Prostreet, Colin McRae or Crysis.